Saturday, November 29, 2008

Sniping At Wayne Root

ENM, you could write an even longer -- and more accurate -- screed about Michael Badnarik's, um, challenges. Liberty Magazine did so back in 2004. And yet I know of no evidence that these challenges impacted Badnarik's formidable ability to make the LP pitch in the 2004 campaign. Similarly, Root's issues didn't put any kind of clear dent in the unprecedented amount of outreach he was able to do from the VP spot. Tom Knapp's predictions of the media's reaction to Root went completely unfulfilled.

With one possible exception, all of the top-tier candidates in 2008 had screed-worthy issues -- and yet none of those problems would have fatally undermined their outreach to the general public, just as was they didn't with Barr and Root. (The exception was my first-ballot choice Phillies, whose only "issue" was his intra-party rancorousness -- something that would never get any play in a general campaign.)

Root certainly has his share of flaws and made his share of mistakes, as Bob pointed out, but I can't credit your screed as much more than just selective sniping at an ideological opponent -- the same sort of stuff I criticized in the "Ruwart supports pedophilia" trolls.